Larry Page - Where’s Google going Next?
This is why I ♥ Google!

by Elaine Lindsay

Larry Page has big dreams.

Larry’s dreams are so big they will affect your life and the entire world. What does Larry want for you and your life? Larry wants your computer to understand what you want and to give it to you. He wants your car to drive to work for you.

Larry went to university in Michigan and he remembers freezing on the bus stop. Today Larry is the CEO of Google, a 400 billion dollar company, so he can explore his dreams. The google self-drive car has safely clocked over a hundred thousand miles. (I want one!)

Larry’s passion for possibilities is contagious, yet he insists that invention is not enough.

Larry says that wild and wonderful ideas need to be anchored in practical applications that add value in real life. Was it practical to provide every Google employee with a bicycle? Larry enthuses about Google people whizzing around campus, and is an avid biker himself. His vision goes further, and in the Ted Talk he shares a video of bikes operating suspended above the roads, free of traffic.

A villager in Africa demonstrated Larry’s vision for Google search. When Zack Matere’s potato crop began to die, he climbed on a bicycle and rode to the nearest cyber cafe and - you guessed it - Google’d it.

Zack discovered that wood ash was the solution and saved his dying crop. After finding plans for a windmill for a friend, Zack created a bulletin board where people could post requests, allowing him to relay Google results for his entire village. [In essence he brought a static form of the internet to the village]

Larry Page believes that search should understand where you are and what you might want and give it to you, but there are hard questions about privacy. Even your phone knows where you are. Larry is disappointed that Google is in the position of protecting people from intrusion by their own government. When he lost his voice, Larry went public and received lots of useful information about his ailment. He realized that research could be advanced if there was a way to give researchers access to medical information anonymously, to protect people’s privacy.

When you do a Google search your results are affected by your history, your location, and other factors. Google’s Incognito mode allows you to do a search that shows you what others will find, which is different than what you will find.

Teaching computers to know what you want is a futuristic goal.

For now it’s about cats.

Google research computers spend hours watching cat videos to learn about cats. It’s complicated because a computer can’t see a cat and has no idea what a cat is.

Computer experience the world in bits and bytes, not purring and litter boxes. The idea of a cat does not exist for a computer, so it has to learn basic concepts to understand a cat. Unfortunately we’re a long way from a robot that will know when to empty the litter box.

How far are we from a car that can drive you to work or suspended bicycles? I’m excited! Check out the video to meet Larry Page. I love the possibilities of Google, and Larry is a one of the people who makes real possibilities come to life.